Should you punish your child?

Punishments do they really work? Does the child actually remember what they were punished for? When its over have they learned a lesson? Here's what some professionals think:

Gina Green, Ph.D.

Researcher, New England Center for Children; Past-president, Association for Behavior Analysis

The best way to reduce misbehavior is to provide abundant positive reinforcement for good behavior.Punishment in the form of unpleasant consequences might stop misbehavior, but it often has undesirable side effects. A child whose behavior is punished may react emotionally, strike back or avoid the person delivering the punishment. Instead of punishing misbehavior, try to catch your child being good. Tell her that you appreciate what she's doing, and do so frequently and consistently. At the same time, make sure misbehavior doesn't pay off by enabling your child to avoid homework or chores, for example, or to gain attention.

Norine G. Johnson, Ph.D.

Past-president, American Psychological Association

If you want a loving, respectful, self-disciplined child you won't use punishment. You will use appropriate parenting tools. For young children you will use diversion, structure, limits and withdrawal of attention. For older children, you will set expectations and spell out the rewards or consequences. In junior high, I took corn from a farmer's field. My father saw me with the corn and asked me to tell the truth, otherwise my punishment would have been twice as bad. I told the truth. I had to apologize to the farmer and eat the raw corn. Today, I value the truth and always wonder what my punishment would have been.

I feel that children spend more time thinking about the actual punishment then thinking about why they were put on punishment which defeats the purpose in my opinion. What I make my 7 year old do is actually write down what she did over and over again and then to write down why she will not do it again and the reason why she was told not to do it I.E. it was dangerous, messy, hurtful etc. I like this method and it works for me... What are some of your methods MOMS and let us know if it works for you!